IN MEMORIAM, TERRY ANDERSON, FORMER HOSTAGE AND DC COMMENCEMENT SPEAKER IN 1996

News media websites today reported the death of Terry Anderson, an Associated Press journalist held for seven years as a hostage in Lebanon, from 1985-1991. After his release, in 1996, Defiance College invited Anderson to be our Commencement speaker, when he also received an honorary degree. The ceremony was to be held in the stadium but rainy weather forced a move into the Weaner Center. The above photo is Anderson speaking to the crowd.

Here he is being awarded the honorary degree:

At left is Dean Richard Stroede, probably a trustee (?), Anderson, and President James Harris at the podium.

Anderson had published his memoir, Den of Lions, two years before, and his address to DC graduates used the same title. The Crescent-News article published May 6, 1996 reported that Anderson’s speech congratulated the graduates on their achievement, and reminded them that a diploma does not mean the end of learning, it’s only a beginning, and that “Defiance College has given you the tools to educate yourself.” Anderson gave a press conference earlier in the day, and there talked about how he sustained himself through his long captivity by talking to, learning from, and praying with his fellow captives. He considered himself a Christian and did not permit himself to be bitter about his experience.

Here is Anderson before the ceremony with President Harris. The vacated Anthony Wayne Library is in the background, before it was renovated into Hubbard Hall:

And below is Anderson on the left, about to shake hands with Professor Dick Howard, with Prof. Dale King in the middle:

Wikipedia says that Anderson worked as an academic teaching journalism at various universities in his later life, and performed philanthropic work.

Barb Sedlock

Lead Librarian and Coordinator of Metadata and Archives

REMEMBERING THE RUTH MCCANN READING COURT

You may recall reading on the College’s Facebook page in January 2024 that the Ruth McCann Reading Court, behind Hubbard Hall, which was added to the building when it was the Anthony Wayne Library/Kevin McCann Center back in the 1960s, has been demolished and will be replaced by a patio, with the intention to provide outdoor dining space for Hive patrons and additional recreational space. The Hive occupies the northeast corner of the building, which used to house book shelves, adjacent to the court.

If as an alumnus, you are trying to remember what the court looked like, I pulled some images from the Archives. The photo above was taken in 1977, with two students using the area as originally intended: a way to read/study using library materials outdoors.

The November 2, 1964 issue of The Defender had an announcement that the court was being planned, on the occasion of President Johnston’s inauguration. I am not embedding a link to that issue here because of our move from our old archives site vendor to the Ohio Memory Project. See my February 2024 post in this blog. Any URLs I add to this post today will not be valid in the near future, so I will leave them out. We are still in the process of moving our documents to Ohio Memory and so I don’t know what the new URLs will be yet.

The October 8, 1965 issue of The Defender announced that Jack Arbolino, a noted academic administrator, would be speaking at the dedication of the Kevin McCann Center and Ruth McCann Reading Court, so it likely opened in the fall of 1965.

There was some grumbling (see 12-9-66 issue of Defender) that the installation of the court meant that less parking was available on campus. That article mentioned the creation of the gravel lot across the street, which is still there today. I had not found documentation before this on when the gravel lot was created.

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This photo above was taken of students studying in the court in 1982.

This photo above is of Professor Bill Shearman (right) with two students looking at an art installation in the reading court in 1967. My research revealed that the court was used for various functions over the years, such as a reception for parents and students, art exhibits like the photo above, and for sorority events.

UPDATE: The ribbon-cutting for the new patio that was recently installed behind Hubbard Hall/the old Anthony Wayne Library was held on Friday, May 11. I took a couple of photos before the ceremony and am posting them here so that alumni can compare the old vs. the new. Please pardon my fingers in the frame, I took them in a hurry and didn’t realize till later that I hadn’t kept my fingers out of the picture.

The above was taken with my back to the building looking towards College Place. The furniture in the photo is temporary until the new furniture arrives.

The above shot is looking more towards the building (a corner of the Pilgrim Library is in the background). I noticed on Friday that the old plaque that said “Ruth McCann Reading Court” was still on the wall to the right of the large windows.

Barb Sedlock

Lead Librarian and Coordinator of Metadata and Archives

ECLIPSE IN DEFIANCE

Defiance will be at the edge of the zone of totality for the upcoming April 8 total solar eclipse. The photo above is of DC students viewing the last solar eclipse to come to the area, in August of 2017. Here are a couple more, below. We lucked out that it was sunny that day.

I heard that hotel rooms were being booked in Defiance as much as a year ago for the upcoming eclipse, even though we are at the edge of the zone of totality. However, the National Weather Service has a page on its site showing the odds of cloud cover in April in past years, and judging by that, we might not get a good view on the day. We’ll cross fingers that the forecasters will be wrong.

Barb Sedlock

Lead Librarian and Coordinator of Metadata and Archives

UPDATE:

Defiance experienced about a minute and a half of totality on April 8. Despite total cloud cover earlier in the morning, it cleared up enough for folks on campus to get a good view of the eclipse at about 3:10PM. Here’s a view of students experiencing the April 8 eclipse:

Despite the high thin clouds in the photo, we could still see a good view of the totality, and the “diamond ring” effect. The photo was taken by Christopher Warner, a Hicksville high school student who is working part time for DC as Audiovisual & Academic Technology Coordinator. Hubbard, Rowe, and Tenzer Halls are in the background.

CHANGES COMING TO DC MEMORY

Defiance College’s cultural heritage site, DC Memory, will be moving its content soon to the Ohio Memory Project, landing page above. 

As a result, the URL’s in this blog that point to pages on the old DC Memory site will no longer work a few weeks from now. Library staff will work on making the embedded URLs point to the same documents at their new URLs in Ohio Memory, but it may take awhile to get more than 10 years’ worth of posts corrected. 

The College’s IT staff have assured us that the domain memory.defiance.edu can be reconfigured to point to our content on Ohio Memory, though they said it might be down for a few days once the time comes to switch. 

Further information will be forthcoming once the switch is complete.

Barb Sedlock

Lead Librarian/Coordinator of Metadata and Archives

DC ACADEMY, THEN (OVER 100 YEARS AGO) AND NOW

Defiance College announced a new program this month, DC Academy, funded by Ohio Means Jobs, to help underprepared students get ready for either the workplace or for college.

When I heard about it, I recalled that Defiance College had an Academy in the early part of the 20th century. From what I could discover with some quick research, DC offered a college preparatory program between 1902 and 1920; at least, the program was listed in the academic catalog during those years. 

The above photo is from the “Class of ’13” Oraculum, showing the students in DC’s Academy in 1912. 

In many of the catalogs, starting in 1902, the program was described as “Studies are arranged to prepare for the regular collegiate courses and certificates of admission to the Freshman year are granted to those who complete any preparatory course. The instruction is given by the regular professors and the needs of each student is understood by his instructors almost continuously during the preparatory and collegiate years. These courses can be entered by any one having a good common school education and can be completed in two or three years….”

Looking at the course listings from the 1912 catalog, it looks like the courses were designed to cover subjects which small rural high schools may not have offered, such as Latin, Algebra, German, and Geometry.

Here is another image of the Academy/Prep students from the 1910 Oraculum:

Below is a photo of William Van Blarcom (on left), who was from Monroe, New Jersey, and was enrolled in the academy/preparatory school, as listed in the 1912/13 catalog. Van Blarcom’s grandson kindly donated this and some other photos to the Archives a few years before Covid.

We welcome the new DC Academy attendees to campus, and note that they join a historical tradition of DC helping to prepare students for further education and for the workplace. Here is the flyer about the new program:

Barb Sedlock

Lead Librarian/Coordinator of Metadata and Archives